READERS CHOICE: THE HARDCORE-ISH EDITION

Axl and I grew up with ’80s (and early ’90s) hair metal, so naturally our tastes lean towards the shreddier, faster and generally more “metal” types of heavy music as opposed to those bands that came up in the hardcore scene and later crossed over into metal. Perhaps this is more true of me; Axl loves Converge, for example, but I just can’t get excited about ’em. I’m not completely closed off to hardcore-influenced metal, though — or even just straight up hardcore — so here are some recent reader-submitted hardcore-ish bands I think are purdy good:

• Like Rats (pictured): Dirty, crusty, meaty riffs, fast and furious, with a pinch of doom and a healthy dose of rock. Self-described “primitive Celtic Forst worship” by guitarist and link-sender Todd Nief. Think Black Breath, Trap Them, Doomriders minus the Thin Lizzy influence, and of course the aforementioned Celtic Frost. Stream two tracks here. [Additional thanks: Crustcake]
• Miles Away: To these ears Miles Away play about the purest, most straight-forward version of hardcore there is. This is just hardcore — no prefixes, suffixes or micro-genre label qualifiers needed. And it’s damn good. I really like this band. [Thanks: Ethan M.]
• The Athiarchists: Kinda like the above but with more Hatebreed influence and a sense of humor. [Thanks: jeremyTron]
• Burnt Church: Grind from Halifax, Nova Scotia that skews to the hardcore edge of the grind spectrum as opposed to the death metal edge. I wouldn’t listen to these guys during my daily stroll but I would most certainly get sweaty with ’em in the dingy basement of a burning church. [Thanks: Alex Stewart]

-VN